During all phases of the Planck mission (Design, Development, Operations and Post-operations), it is necessary to guarantee proper information management among many Co-Is, Associates, engineers and technical and scientific staff (the estimated number of participants is over 200), located throughout countries in both Europe and North America. Information concerning the project ranges from instrument information (technical characteristics, reports, configuration control documents, drawings, public communications, etc.), to the analysis of the impact on science implied by specific technical choices. For this purpose, an Integrated Data and Information System (IDIS) will be developed to allow proper intra-Consortium and inter-Consortia information exchange. A set of tools will be provided, maximizing use of Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) or reliable public domain software, to allow distributed collaborative research to be carried out. The general requirements for IDIS and its components have bene defined; the preparation of software requirements and COTS selection is being carried out. A prototype IDIS is expected to be available in spring 2000.

The Kanzelhoehe Solar Observatory is an observing facility located in Carinthia (Austria) and operated by the Institute of Geophysics, Astrophysics and Meteorology of the Karl- Franzens University Graz. A set of instruments for solar surveillance at different wavelengths bands is continuously operated in automatic mode and is presently being upgraded to be used in supplying near-real-time solar activity indexes for space weather applications. In this frame, we tested a low-end software/hardware architecture running on the PC platform in a non-homogeneous, remotely distributed environment that allows efficient or moderately efficient application sharing at the Intranet and Extranet (i.e., Wide Area Network) levels respectively. Due to the geographical distributed of participating teams (Trieste, Italy; Kanzelhoehe and Graz, Austria), we have been using such features for collaborative remote software development and testing, data analysis and calibration, and observing run emulation from multiple sites as well. In this work, we describe the used architecture and its performances based on a series of application sharing tests we carried out to ascertain its effectiveness in real collaborative remote work, observations and data exchange. The system proved to be reliable at the Intranet level for most distributed tasks, limited to less demanding ones at the Extranet level, but quite effective in remote instrument control when real time response is not needed.

The Liverpool telescope on La Palma will provide live images for planetarium shows in the Liverpool Museum in the UK. Data transfer will be achieved using the Internet. We implemented an automatic program of hourly ftp file transfers from La Palma to the UK throughout 1998 and 1999 to monitor the transfer rates achievable. We find that both the mean and minimum (on 9 out of 10 nights) transfer rates are a function of time of day on weekdays. In addition we find that the minimum transfer rate in early evening has increased from approximately 5 Kbytes/sec in 1998 to approximately 25 Kbytes/sec in 1999. This implies that a compression ratio of around 30:1 must be achieved to allow live display of 2048 X 2048 pixel CCD images in the UK within 10 seconds of the data being taken.

Already in the early stages of the design of ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) and its instruments, it became clear that the network technology in use at the La Silla Observatory could not be simply extrapolated to cope with the VLT requirements. The new generation of instruments has needs for much higher throughput, and also the `remote' operation of four telescopes from a central Control Building forced a new approach.

In October 1997 a number of projects were started at ESO's Paranal Observatory at Cerro Paranal in Chile to upgrade the communications infrastructure in place at the time. The planned upgrades were to internal systems such as computer data networks and telephone installations and also data links connecting Paranal to other ESO sites. This paper details the installation work carried out on the Paranal Core Network (PCN) during the period of October 1997 to December 1999. These installations were to provide both short term solutions to the requirement for reliable high bandwidth network connectivity between Paranal and ESO HQ in Garching, Germany in time for UTI (Antu) first light and perhaps more importantly, to provide the core systems necessary for a site moving towards operational status. This paper explains the reasons for using particular cable types, network topology, and fiber backbone design and implementation. We explain why it was decided to install the PCN in two distinct stages and how equipment used in temporary installations was re-used in the Very Large Telescope networks. Finally we describe the tools used to monitor network and satellite link performance and will discuss whether network backbone bandwidth meets the expected utilization and how this bandwidth can easily be increased in the future should there be a requirement.

The National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) has facilities at 17 different locations scattered throughout the USA. These vary in size from the major laboratories occupied by research and support staff to the ten individual antennas of the Very Long Baseline Array. As is typical in astronomy, many sites are in remote locations, which are not well served with modern communication capabilities. Until 1996, the NRAO's internal network was achieved via the Internet; most sites simply had a local port to the Internet and the traffic was routed tortuously to the other locations. The burgeoning demand for Internet bandwidth was (and still is) growing faster than the services could be enhanced, and this led to intolerably slow response times and unacceptably low achieved data rates. To solve this problem, the NRAO acquired a frame relay intranet from AT&T to connect ten of its locations. The operating cost is approximately the same as the multiple Internet connections, but with vastly improved throughput and reliability. Recently, the access to the four major sites has been upgraded to support video conferencing.

On completion in 2000, the Green Bank Telescope (GB) will be the largest fully steerable radio telescope in the world. It has a clear aperture design, an active surface, and an advanced laser metrology system designed to give the enormous structure precision performance at radio wavelengths of less than 3 mm. To realize the full scientific potential of such a telescope, we must dynamically match the requirements of the most meritorious scientific programs to the changing observing conditions. This requires (1) flexible scheduling so that the most demanding programs are scheduled only when conditions are appropriate for them, and (2) interactive real-time access to the data by astronomers so they can judge how best to meet their scientific goals under the prevailing conditions. Because of Green Bank's isolated location, we expect that a substantial fraction of the observing will be done remotely. Facilities to interact with the GB must therefore be available at the observers' home institutions. The National Radio Astronomy Observatory seeks to establish a DS-3 or higher network connection to Green Bank. This poses special problems due to the remoteness of the facility.

Gemini has recently been awarded two NSF grants to be used for enhancing the network connectivity in Hawaii and in Chile. We discuss our plans for these grants. Of special note is the collaborative nature of these grants, and how multiple organizations can leverage individual contributions with results greater than can be achieved separately.

We discuss the requirements and goals for the Gemini videoconferencing systems, performance and usage of the system to date, and plans for enhancing the system. Our five internal sites include Hawaii, Arizona and Chile; our external sites span the globe. We discuss how the systems have been received by users, and successes and complaints. We also look at future improvements, such as more pervasive and affordable multi-site videoconferencing, video over IP, and IP-multicasting.

The IRAM 30 m telescope is located in the Sierra Nevada mountain range, 50 km to the south of the city of Granada/Spain, at an altitude of 2900 m. More than 100 scientific projects are executed every year by about 200 visiting observers. Since 1990, observations can be made from the Granada office in a way very much like on the telescope. Since 1998, such remote observing is also possible from the IRAM headquarters in Grenoble, France. About 5 percent of the time the telescope is controlled from these remote stations. We plan to install additional remote observing stations in order to facilitate a more flexible telescope scheduling.

The REMOT (Remote Experiment Monitoring and conTrol) project was financed by 1996 by the European Community in order to investigate the possibility of generalizing the remote access to scientific instruments. After the feasibility of this idea was demonstrated, the DYNACORE (DYNAmically, COnfigurable Remote Experiment monitoring and control) project was initiated as a REMOT follow-up. Its purpose is to develop software technology to support scientists in two different domains, astronomy and plasma physics. The resulting system allows (1) simultaneous multiple user access to different experimental facilities, (2) dynamic adaptability to different kinds of real instruments, (3) exploitation of the communication infrastructures features, (4) ease of use through intuitive graphical interfaces, and (5) additional inter-user communication using off-the-shelf projects such as video-conference tools, chat programs and shared blackboards.

We describe the current status of efforts to establish a high-bandwidth network from the U.S. mainland to Mauna Kea and a facility in California to support Keck remote observing and engineering via the Internet. The California facility will be an extension of the existing Keck remote operations facility located in Waimea, Hawaii. It will be targeted towards short-duration observing runs which now comprise roughly half of all scheduled science runs on the Keck Telescope. Keck technical staff in Hawaii will support remote observers on the mainland via video conferencing and collaborative software tools. Advantages and disadvantages of remote operation from California versus Hawaii are explored, and costs of alternative communication paths examined. We describe a plan for a backup communications path to protect against failure of the primary network. Alternative software models for remote operation are explored, and recent operational results described.

On Mar. 6-7, 1997, a simultaneous remote observation from 6 sites was successfully carried out with the cooperation of astronomers and hobbyists in China, United States, Canada, and Great Britain. In the paper, the process and technical methods in this observation are introduced in detail. The present difficulties and brilliant prospects in the observational method under the current circumstances of Internet in China are shown as well.

This paper is divided into two parts. In the first the project of didactics and outreach `Catch the Stars in the Net an account of some important lessons learned on the way the Network use change the rules of the play is given. An account of the new Web module: `The Universe at Your fingertips', especially developed for visually impaired and even completely blind Web users is finally given.

Five per-cent of the observing time on the Liverpool Telescope (a 2-m robotic telescope sited in La Palma) will be set aside for public understanding of science. Schools access will be via, a queue scheduling mechanism, and public access via live Planetarium shows. We describe the development and performance of a generic Java message passing system to allow communication between the processes implementing the robotic control of the telescope and the remote processes that will be run at the Planetarium. We also describe an adaptive data compression algorithm to allow transfer of data back from the telescope in near real time and our software for Planetarium access which allows staff at the Planetarium to implement their own control system and display software. Finally we describe our hierarchical web-based system for schools to input observation requests and the image processing software we have developed to allow them to make quantitative measurements of the resulting data.

A robotic telescope is both a complex system with many potential modes of failure, and an attractive target for computer criminals. The paper describes a systematic approach to security designed to optimize the operational continuity of such a system. This includes the development of policy guidelines, techniques for identifying the prioritizing the assets to be protected, and for assessing the threats against these assets. Commonly encountered threats are discussed, and specific security mechanisms to counter these threats described, including fault-tolerant hardware configurations, cryptographic techniques for authentication and confidentiality, and leveraging the properties of point-to-point wide-area networking links. A typical remote telescope offers multiple points of attack through its interfaces for engineering control, observation scheduling, data retrieval and routine management. A case study is presented highlighting the engineering trade-offs required to protect these interfaces, and discussing the implementation of specific countermeasures described earlier. Finally some recommendations are made for managing the human aspects of security implementations.

We describe the operations model for our two robotic photoelectric telescopes and give a brief status report after more than three years of routine operation in southern Arizona. The telescopes operate fully unattended, also the observatory itself is automatic. A site-control computer monitors weather sensors and operates the roof while the telescope control computers operate the photometers and accept input files from and provides nightly observations to the astronomer in Vienna. In the first three years of operation a total of 3.3 million individual scientific measurements were made.

The European Space Agency's Optical Ground Station has been equipped between 1995 and 1999 with a 12.5 m observatory dome, a fully remote controllable 1 m Ritchey Chretien Coude Telescope (1 m RCC Zeiss telescope), a Focal Plane Optical Bench in the Coude focus and a 4 k X 4 k CCD camera with focal reducer system in the Cassegrain focus by Carl Zeiss.

The Communications Research Laboratory (CRL), the National Astronomical Observatory (NAO), the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS), and the Telecommunication Network Laboratory Group of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation have developed a real-time VLBI array, maximum baseline-length was 208 km. The very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) observed data is transmitted through a high-speed asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) network (2,488- Gbps [STM-16/OC-48] ATM network) instead of being recorded onto magnetic tapes. The system was composed of two real-time VLSI networks: the Keystone Project network of CRL (which is used for measuring crustal deformation in the Tokyo metropolitan area), and the OLIVE (optically linked VLBI experiment) network of NAO and ISAS which is used for astronomy (space-VLBI). The acquired VLBI data were corrected via the ATM network and the cross-correlation processing were done simultaneously. A radio flares on the weak radio source (HR1099) and weak radio sources were detected.